“I’ve done my best in the good struggle; I’ve completed the race; I’ve kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4.7).
I grew up, like a lot of my generation, playing arcade video games. Pac Man, Galaga, Donkey Kong, and so many others swallowed many of my quarters. Those early games were much different than those today. Completing a level meant clearing the screen. Then, unlike today’s games that lead to a climactic battle, you went to the next screen, which was similar to the last except that everything moved faster. It could be frustrating, even exhausting to keep finding another level just like the last. But, each time, you took a breath, wiped sweat off your hands, got ready, and played.
I don’t play video games very often now, haven’t for years. A lot of it is just that I enjoy doing other things more than gaming. But it’s also that the modern structure doesn’t appeal to me.
In today’s games, every level culminates in a Boss, which calls for you to move a certain way, jump at certain times, use a specific weapon to defeat or destroy who is standing in your way. If you’re successful, you clear the level. Do it several more times and defeat the Final Boss, you win the game.
The structure has a lot of satisfaction in it. Advancement is seen in a series of small victories until, at last, there is one, grand victory where all is, at last, set to right. The evil is vanquished. The hero can go and rest.
There’s a temptation to see 3 November as the end of a level, a moment where we face the Big Boss. If we do everything right, we can win. The Bad (whoever you define that to be) will be defeated, and we’ll have won.
Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. No matter what happens, the good struggle goes on. Sea ice is freezing later than it ever has. Immigrant children remain separated from their parents. And we are months away from the end of this pandemic.
Life, it seems, is a lot more like the old-style video games than the new. We may make the right moves to clear this level, but there’s another one coming and its obstacles will be moving much faster.
“I’ve done my best in the good struggle,” the Second Letter to Timothy says. I didn’t win. I didn’t defeat every level. But I did my best. I kept running. I didn’t give up.
The days and months ahead will likely continue to throw challenges at us, many of them the same ones we’ve seen before. It may seem things are moving faster than ever. We may want to give up.
But we can continue. We can lift each other up, keep running, keep struggling. It may seem never-ending and that we cannot win, but we keep the faith that all things are capable of redemption, and the One who defeated death is still right with us.
So, take a breath, wipe the sweat from your hands, get ready…and play.